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The Twelve Tables Ch. 25 free porn video
Authors Note: Thank you to everyone left comments or sent me feedback about previous chapters of this story. Thank you again to Margaret who proofread for me. ~ellie
*****
The Donati men sat around the big table in the Athenaeum listening to the sermon of the family priest as he retold the biblical story of the twelfth night and the epiphany the following day that the Son of God had been born.
‘Like that baby, your ancestors were born the sons of men with no name, no prestige, no power. Men with the courage and determination to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. Each of you has chosen to embrace who you were born to be and receive the name, prestige, and power that your forefathers risked their lives to ensure would be the rightful legacy of their Son’s sons down throughout the ages,’ he spoke in a heartfelt rousing tone.
It seemed to the men at the table more of a battle cry than a blessing but then their family had been at war long before the infant Jesus had been born. The history lesson within the sermon seemed to go on interminably as they were reminded that the Twelve tables took up the ideals and purpose of the Italics, as well as the laws of ancient Rome, though they had been chiselled finely to suit the modern day world as each generation had taken its place at the table.
‘You the descendants of noble men have chosen to take up the torch and be a beacon of goodness and light to your fellow men,’ He raised his hands as he gave his final blessing on the table and the men who sat around it.
Dante felt like laughing. He was coveting his brother’s wife and encouraging her to commit adultery. Not only was he doing that but the act was encouraged and accepted as part of their lives by every man here. He considered the other commandments and realised that the only one he could honestly believe that they all strictly adhered to was, honour thy mother and father. While he didn’t believe anyone in this room was a stone cold killer, he also knew from recent events that anyone could be driven to it given the right circumstances.
It was a tradition brought to the family when they had blended with the powerful and deeply religious Medici family. It was all about salvation for the murky world of religious, political intrigue and manipulation, in which they dwelt when one overlapped the other constantly. Despite how altruistic their ancestor’s motives must have been, there was no doubt that the family benefitted greatly from all the machinations of those medieval generations both professionally and privately.
In this modern world, they continued to slaves and servants. They lived like kings above the reach of the local laws, because of the power and affluence they held. The men at this table, including himself, were far removed from the saintly personalities the priest waxed on about and he could have laughed out loud as he was anointed with an oily cross to his forehead.
This meeting originally scheduled for tomorrow had been rescheduled half an hour before it began and they had all dropped their plans immediately to be here. Dante was reassured that Peri now had two watchers and a bodyguard acting as a third nanny to anyone outside of their home. Each of their wives now had watchers as they remained on alert because the evidence Marcus had brought them, that someone within their immediate family had already been compromised.
The drawn out ceremony was slowly coming to end when Dante felt a prickling on his scalp. Something was wrong. He turned his head toward the door narrowing his eyes and listening carefully past the droning of the priest. He stood and held up his hand for silence stunning those around the table and quickly walked toward the door throwing it open and staring at the man walking toward him with a gun raised before him.
‘Gun,’ he yelled and dove forward onto the floor taking the gunman’s feet out from under him and carrying him to the floor, as well as he cried out in pain. Ignoring the searing pain in his leg he used the momentary shock of the man below him to disarm him and punch him in the face. Dino and several others ran past him toward a scuffle at the front of the showroom floor.
‘You fucking shot me! Motherfucker!’ Dante roared in pain and slammed his fist into the man face one more time as his father knelt beside him pulling him away and others moved to make sure the area was clear.
‘Well that was a stupid thing to do,’ Joseph frowned and took his jacket off, using it to put pressure on the wound. ‘It doesn’t look too bad.’
‘Hurts like a mother…’ Dante grimaced as his father added pressure making the pain slice up his leg.
‘I don’t think they expected anyone to be here but the night guards, one fled as soon as they saw us, Dino and Larry went after him. One of the guards is down. The others managed to fight back and sound the alarm. Another man is being taped up by Romey and Jules. The police should be here any moment,’ Ben reported as he returned with Josh.
‘Fuck the police get an ambulance,’ Dante groaned.
‘What do we do with this guy and his friend,’ Vincenzo indicated the unconscious man that he had one foot on. ‘Keep him or throw him to the boys in blue?’
‘Keep them. Charles you take them to your place, Con, CJ go with them we’ll meet back there later after the hero here gets his wound kissed better by a pretty nurse,’ Joseph said in a light tone. ‘Get the others back here with us before the police arrive so we can get our story straight,’ Joseph ordered taking full control of the situation.
When the police arrived the two men had been taken away by Constantine, Charles, and his sons, through the narrow corridors that ran like a maze behind this front building to the side streets. Only one of the would-be attackers had a gun which was handed over to the police. The story had been that the men who had been conducting a family meeting had surprised the would-be thieves and Dante had been shot before landing a few good punches on the offender’s face. They described the three men in detail and aside from the fact that they said that the three men fled the scene they were in all other ways scrupulously honest.
Ben received a call and nodded to Joseph signalling that Dino and Lorenzo had been successful in a fast but relatively short little car chase and were on their way to Charles place, they would meet everyone there.
‘Change of plans,’ Vincenzo said quietly. ‘Whoever told them our meeting was tomorrow is in danger. Go home and check on your loved ones just as a precaution. The senior table can meet with Charles after we deliver our wives to a safe location. We can’t move all your young families.’
‘Josh. Go. Now,’ Dante groaned as the paramedics probed at his wound and packed it with dressings. ‘I’ll be fine with these sadists. Go check on Peri.’ He grimaced.
‘It doesn’t look bad, no damage to bones or arteries, he’s been very lucky, it could have been much worse,’ one of the paramedics informed them as they rolled him onto a stretcher and lifted it to transport Dante to the hospital.
‘Which hospital are you taking him to?’ Josh asked.
‘The Royal is closest,’ came the immediate answer.
‘Right, I’ll be there soon. Here’re my details,’ Josh handed a police officer his card. ‘I didn’t see much. I’m sure my father and Uncles can fill you in on all you need to know.’
‘I’ll call Charles on my way home,’ Josh said.
*****
‘Josh stop! They’re scared enough!’ Peri raised her voice and stood between her husband and her sister’s in-law. ‘I promised that you and Dante would help them. Where is he?’ She looked around at the doorway expecting to see him standing there watching with that crooked smile of his.
‘Help them with what? Explaining to their husbands how fucking dim-witted they are?’ Josh demanded. ‘Where are the kids?’ he demanded of the two women.
Josh had walked in to find Emily and Carmen sitting with Peri lo
oking worried and thinking about how Ben and Romey would feel returning home and not finding them there tore at his heart. He had picked up the phone and called Ben, ‘Emily is here with Peri. Call Romey, Carmen is here too and all of the kids.’ He had stabbed a finger at his phone and abruptly turned on the two women ranting about how thoughtless they were in not telling their husbands of their plans.
‘The kids are downstairs in the nursery, all of them with their nannies. Josh,’ Peri said tentatively trying to come to terms with the ranting raving lunatic that was her husband. ‘What’s happened?’ She asked with a sinking feeling. ‘Where’s Dante?’
‘He’s been shot,’ Josh growled and regretted his harsh words as he watched all of the colour drain from Peri’s face a moment before her legs buckled and she collapsed to the ground in front of him. He went to her and scooped her up into his arms. ‘He’s going to be okay, nothing vital was hit, he’s gone to the hospital in an ambulance,’ he explained, and she looked up at him with teary eyes. ‘No, you can’t go there not tonight. He is fine, and they will call with details. I promise.’
‘I have to go! I’ll take a bodyguard, a watcher, a team of them with me, but I have to go!’ she said in a panicked voice.
‘No,’ Josh said sternly. ‘Dante sent me home to protect you, and I am not going to let him down again tonight! Now sit and explain this!’ He waved his arm at the two women who looked pale and ill on the sofa before him.
‘Emily you have to tell him, especially now,’ Peri implored.
‘About a week after Nik went to prison I got an email from her. At least I thought it was her. It was her email address, the gmail one she occasionally used when she was mad at the family and needed to rant to someone about them. She called herself Ronnie Mar. I always thought it was better if she ranted to me and got it out of her system, so I never said anything about it,’ she said quietly. ‘We were close you know, closer than she was with the rest of the family except maybe you. Ben tried so hard to be there for her despite everything she did. I thought I was doing the right thing.’
‘Keep going, you got an email from her,’ Josh said through clenched teeth realising where this was going.
‘She was miserable, and she sounded so contrite, and I thought that eventually, Papa would forgive her and send her to one of the other families you know. I hated that she sounded so alone and lost. Ben never fully explained the details of what she did to Peri, we never saw her while she was recovering. We had no idea it was anything more than a little tiff with Peri. We knew that she had killed a guard at the Battaglia. We found out at your engagement party after that scene with Isabella that it was more than a tiff, of course,’ she tried to justify her actions.
‘The emails were all totally innocent, just family news, nothing of any importance. When you got married, that you were expecting, about Bianca and me as well, just general stuff. Then a few days before Christmas when her email came it was different demanding almost and wanting to know when Joseph was retiring so Ben could take over the family business,’ she took a breath and knotted her fingers together. ‘I didn’t know anything about it, so I had nothing to say. The emails seemed so much like her until the ones I received over Christmas at the farm. She seemed to know that all the elders were there with their families, and she wanted to know what was going on.’
‘So you told her,’ Josh finished for her.
‘Only it wasn’t her, and the next email told me that I had betrayed the family and if I didn’t continue to answer her questions something bad would happen,’ her voice started to crack. ‘I thought we were safe in our house with all the security and when the emails came I never answered them I just deleted them until Nik died. They said it was my fault and a demonstration that they could get to anyone anywhere. I couldn’t tell Ben I had betrayed him, and killed his sister. I couldn’t! Now everything is out of control, and I don’t know what to do.’ Emily dissolved into tears at that point.
‘Where do you figure in all this?’ Josh turned his dark gaze on Carmen.
‘Romey and I believed he could and should be the new chair. When I found out what was going on with Emily I thought as the mother I could protect her from being sent away, exiled. I thought I could protect her from the family’s wrath for her betrayal, but then you and Peri were there looking like there might be another option for Chair, and I panicked. I couldn’t help Em without that sort of power behind me. I panicked and behaved badly, Carmen admitted, but with Ben out of the race we were so sure it would be us,’ she shook her head trying to explain what a bitter pill Josh getting the chair had been to swallow.
‘After your words to me in the New Year’s circle, I knew we had to tell someone,’ she took Emily’s hand in her own. ‘Despite the tension between us lately Peri has still tried to be my friend, our friend,’ she squeezed Emily’s hand. ‘Whoever is sending the emails knows about the meeting tomorrow, and we are worried they will do something.’
Josh took a calming breath. Both women had done what they had with good intentions or at least what they believed were the right intentions. He tried to remain calm and consider what Dante may do or say at this point. Every fire in his being wanted to yell and scream at the two women for their stupidity, but he swallowed it down and considered them silently.
‘Well at least we know who they were targeting,’ Josh said in a measured tone. ‘That makes life a little easier,’ he let out a long breath. ‘We had information that someone in the family was being targeted, we just didn’t know who. You have all been being watched,’ he admitted. Feeling some satisfaction from their startled looks. ‘Believe me, it’s better hearing this from you than finding out ourselves.’
He picked up his Phone again. ‘I need your best hacker at my place,’ Josh said abruptly. ‘Well if you’re the best you know then get your ass over here,’ he said shortly. ‘Who the hell have you been texting,’ he asked Peri irritably.
‘Dante, they’re prepping him for surgery, and he won’t let me be there,’ she said in a small voice holding her phone out to Josh with a shaking hand. His demeanour immediately softened, and he pulled her into his arms.
‘He’s going to be fine,’ he crooned. ‘I promise you can fuss over him as much as you like tomorrow, but you need to stay here tonight. It’s important to both of us, understand? D. wants you here where it’s safe right now.’ She nodded reluctantly.
‘Josh,’ Emily said tentatively. ‘I’m sorry. I was stupid. Scared and so stupid. This is all my fault. D. has been hurt because of me.’ Fresh tears coursed own her face.
‘Why is what happened to D. your fault?’ Ben asked stiffly, as he walked into the room and took in his crying wife’s words.
‘I can’t,’ she said hopelessly and buried her face in her hands. ‘I just can’t,’ she shook her head and let our muffled sobs of fear and sadness.
‘Josh?’ Ben questioned still staring at his sobbing wife, as Romey came to stand beside him looking at Carmen who looked back with a dismal expression.
‘Okay,’ Josh let out a sigh. ‘Let’s all grab a drink and I’ll tell you what I know.’
He passed a bottle of red wine and several glasses to his brothers, from the bar, refusing to be pushed into telling the story before he was ready. Then he grabbed a six pack from the fridge.
‘Choose your poison you’re all staying the night anyway,’ Josh waved his arm. ‘I imagine this place is safer than anywhere else. The family can meet here rather than Charles house once they’re done.’
‘If that’s the case, I’ll have something stronger, I have a feeling I’m not going to like this,’ Romey said without any emotion and walked to the bar grabbing a bottle of Sambuca.
‘I’ll have a shot,’ Ben said watching Romey and they all sat
down around the large coffee table in the middle of the couches.
‘Tell me,’ Josh started to speak, ‘Why didn’t you tell them what Nik did to Peri?’ He stared at his brothers. ‘Who did you think you were you protecting? Her or them?’ He demanded. ‘Because you sure as shit weren’t protecting us.’
‘What was the point? Nik was going to jail for murdering Giorgio,’ Romey shrugged. Ben said nothing. The truth was that he hated to think about what she had done. He was haunted by the vision he had of Peri the following morning in the hospital, barely clinging to life.
‘The point is that they had no reason to be wary of Nik. As far as they knew, Giorgio’s death was accidental. Not the act of an unstable woman, who had lost touch with reality,’ Josh explained. ‘If I have learned one thing over the last few weeks, it’s that every single man on the current table rely heavily on their wives and trust them absolutely. It’s time to step up gentlemen and accept that what happened tonight is partially your responsibility.’
‘What does Nik have to do with what happened tonight,’ Romey’s logical brain couldn’t connect the dots.
‘Someone using one of Nicks random Gmail accounts, has been a pen pal to Emily since Nik went to prison,’ Josh said. ‘Emily had no real idea what had happened in Canberra or what followed so she assumed that eventually all would be forgiven, and Nik would be sent to live with one of the other families.’ Josh looked at her sadly, ‘And I can’t blame her for that, she did it out of love. She believed she was helping a lonely, lost sister, who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘You never said,’ Ben frowned.
‘She was in exile. You refused to acknowledge her name anytime I tried to bring it up. I thought I was helping her and you by telling her the family news,’ her whispered voice trailed off, and she put her face into her hands again.
‘I see. Then what happened?’ Ben turned to Josh.
‘Christmas,’ Josh supplied. ‘Seems things turned quite nasty, and the writer revealed they weren’t Nik and threatened to expose her betrayal to the family. Things got quite nasty when Emily refused to correspond anymore. They threatened to hurt the ones she loved and,’ he looked at Emily, ‘Correct me if I get this bit wrong. Then after the holidays they claimed to have killed Nik as a demonstration that they could get to anyone at any time.’
Emily nodded not taking her hands from her face and letting out a loud sob. ‘I’m so sorry. She’s dead because of me and now Dante,’ her soft voice was muffled, and she let out a heartfelt cry and began sobbing in earnest.
‘I was looking most likely for the chair, so they targeted Emily,’ Ben nodded seeing why she would have been a target.
‘Back to Christmas though, because that’s when Carmen found out what was happening and decided that because she was so sure she would be the next Mother she could protect Emily and fix it all for Nik, and everyone could go on with life as normal. It seems she went into a bit of panic when she realised Peri might be a threat to her plans. Rather than confide in us or Peri who admittedly was still new to the family, she tried to take matters into her own hands and even after the announcement, sought to take over the role by forcing Peri to give her free reign. That way she could still influence the outcome of events for Emily and Nik.’
Romey pursed his lips, but said nothing, as he took in the information that Carmen had not been honest with him about why she had threatened Peri.
‘CJ is on his way over to hack Gmail, or at least that’s what I hope he can do,’ Josh said feeling the weight of leadership settle on him as he watched his brothers each deal with their wive’s stupidity and betrayal. ‘D. is in surgery by the way,’ he added to the gloom of the evening and took a large pull of his beer.
‘Fuck,’ Ben sighed. ‘That gloomy sack of misery is always around to poke shit at everything I do and the one fucking time I need him, he has to go and be a fucking hero.’
Kaylin
- 24.06.2021
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